


Reality tends to fade away

by BrilliantlyHorrid



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 2x20 speculation, F/M, Other SHIELD is terrible, Scars sneak peak, Skye Coulson and May are trained SHIELD Agents, angst angst angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 03:31:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3880609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrilliantlyHorrid/pseuds/BrilliantlyHorrid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After some low blows from both sides, Skye leaves the Playground. But not before understanding the conditions of her release. </p><p>Speculation based on the second sneak peak for "Scars." (With shipper-ness, of course.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reality tends to fade away

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be irrelevant in less than 24 hours sooo getting it out while I can! I've been posting/thinking about what that second sneak peek could mean, so I decided to just write what I think/hope/wish/dream. Skoulson!Angst warning. Sort of. 
> 
> Title is from an Edward Albee quote.  
> "Being different is ... interesting; there's nothing implicitly inferior or superior about it. Great difference, of course, produces natural caution; and if the differences are too extreme ... well, then, reality tends to fade away."

_“So you, of all people, should understand why they want to keep their location a secret. What they’re so afraid of.”_

 

Skye stared May down, watching the myriad of emotions crossing the other woman’s face. She braced herself, for an insult, a retort, or maybe even a punch, but none came. May simply walked out. Steeling herself again, she looked at Coulson. He watched May leave, then turned to Skye. His face made her want to crawl into a hole.

Shock. Disappointment. Maybe a little hope, hope that he had misunderstood her somehow. That this was all a big mistake. 

“Why...how could you say that?” His voice made her swallow heavily.

“She killed a child,” Skye said, forcing herself not to back down. “She killed one of _my people_ , because SHIELD didn’t understand--”

“ _You don’t understand_ ,” Coulson shot back, stepping toward her. “You have no idea what happened to her, why she had to do what she did to get out of the situation she was put in.”

“You’re right,” Skye said, crossing her arms. “I have no clue why you do the things you do.” She watch Coulson straighten up, a defiant look on his face. “Ward? Of all people, you join up with the absolute _last_ person I ever wanted to see. To hunt me down.”

He looked like she had slapped him.

“We weren’t _hunting_ you, Skye, I was trying to find you, to help you.” His voice grew softer, and Skye felt a familiar itch in the back of her throat.

She hated this. She hated hurting this man, the one person she couldn't bear looking at her like this, in anger and fear.

“I don’t need your help, I need to get back to Lai Shi, back to my people.”

He got an ugly look on his face. “ _Your people_? Oh, I know how eager your are for you and your _friend_ downstairs to get away from here.” Skye felt the heat begin to climb up her face.

“Are you kidding me?”

“You’ve known him, what, a week? And you’re so willing to leave us, leave the team behind,” his voice was getting louder this time, and she marveled that it was this, of all things, that seemed to rile him up.

“That’s not fair, you don’t get to do that,” she told him, and watched him lean back on the desk. That stupid, cocky, snooty look on his face.

“Do what?”

She was done. She was done trying to reign it in.

“You don’t get to keep me at arms length, then get upset when someone else decides not to,” she yelled, taking a hint of pleasure in the shell-shocked look on his face. In her chest, her heart buzzed like a wasps nest.

“What-- that’s not…” Hearing his objection die in his throat, Skye felt it again.

Doubt. Was this really the best way? _It's the only way._ She drew her shoulders back, watching Coulson brace himself this time.

“You know exactly what it’s about. So stop pretending that the reason you want to keep me around isn’t the same reason that May wants me gone, or Gonzales wants me under--under lock and key.” She stepped closer to him. “You’re _afraid_.”

Coulson’s eyes, that hadn’t left the floor, finally looked up. Skye froze. He looked like he was about to--

She felt a tickle on the side of her jaw, in the stillness of the moment, and registered how her throat rasped with every breath. _When did I start crying?_

“I’m not afraid of you Skye,” he told her quietly. She shook her head. This was all wrong. Skye turned her back on him, wiping a hand across her face, agitated.

“Of course you are, you all are. That’s why you kill us, and track us, and cut us open,” she argued, pacing around his office.

“We’re not Hydra,” Coulson’s sharp voice cut through her motions, and she looked over at him.

“Yeah, well, forgive me. It’s getting kind of hard to tell these days.”

Watching his face, Skye grew worried. Worried he was going to break, and just end up repeating the words she was so sick of hearing. Those words she’d heard so many times over the years that they lost all meaning.

_‘I’d never hurt you.’_

Of all the lies, that was the worst one.

But she needn’t be worried. He didn’t look sad, or broken, or regretful. He was pissed off, frustrated, ready to get her out of his sight.

“How can you say that? SHIELD took you in, was your family--”

“SHIELD _took me from my family_!” Skye shouted, getting in his face. “And SHIELD is keeping me from my family.”

She knew Coulson wouldn’t hit her, ever. Just like she would never hit him. But the look on his face felt like a punch in the gut. _That’s it._

“Fine. You don’t want to be here, we’re getting your things. I want you off my base.” Coulson’s voice was flat and unforgiving. Hollow, maybe. He was just as done with this as she was.

“Fine,” she replied, flinching a bit when he grabbed her arm and began leading her out of his office. They moved quickly, heading down the hall toward the bunks, passing a confused Hunter and Mack, a concerned Fitz and Simmons. “Wait, what about Lincoln?” She asked, craning her neck to look in the lab.

Coulson set his jaw. “He’ll be going with you, don't worry.” As they moved out of earshot of the lab, she felt Coulson’s arm tug her around a corner, away from the bunks. They took another sharp turn, stepping behind a pillar. The wall next to the pillar opened, and Coulson pulled her inside. The wall closed behind them. In the darkness Skye felt Coulson release her arm, then heard him shuffle around the small space for a moment. With a little grinding noise, a lightbulb turned on. Above Coulson’s head, the small chain swung.

“We don’t have much time,” he told her, looking through a cardboard box in the corner. “You need to tell Lincoln you’re both leaving soon.”

“Are you sure Gonzales didn’t see your little detour?” Skye leaned against the wall, waiting for her heart rate to return to its normal speed.

“May should be in his office by now, she and Bobbi will be keeping him busy.” He kept digging around in the dark, pausing to toss her something. It was her backpack. 

She and May had packed it that morning, in preparation for a hasty exit. Skye grew somber.

“Is May going to be okay? She looked a little...rattled.” Coulson slipped something into his pocket, then walked over to her.

“May is fine. If she didn’t think she could handle it, she wouldn’t have agreed,” he said in that reassuring voice of his. Bringing up Bahrain in that way, knowing full well how traumatic it was for May, that had been a struggle for Skye. She didn’t have the relationship with her SO that she had with Coulson. She didn’t know, when May said it was okay, if it _really_ _was_ okay. But they had talked at length, and agreed that if this break was going to be believable, they had to really sell it.

_Which we did._

“That got a little intense, huh?” Skye asked, scratching the back of her neck. While the tears definitely worked in their favor by ramping up the moment, they had been...unexpected.

“Yeah,” Coulson agreed, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I think we pulled it off. I’m sure most --if not all-- of the team thinks you want nothing to do with me anymore after that display.” He smiled a bit and Skye returned it.

“I think you're right," she mused, thinking about Fitz and Simmons, and their faces as they saw her leaving. She hoped to explain everything soon, but was enough of a realist to know that could take a while. She looked up at Coulson, who seemed to be on another planet. "And hey, sorry I went off book for a minute there.” Coulson shrugged.

“It worked,” he told her, watching his shoe scuff against the floor. He looked uncomfortable.

“Look, you know that this, _all of it_ , was part of the act, right? Because it would be pretty ironic if you’re the one who insisted that 'nothing in that room is real,' and we would be fine, and then you end up…” She waved her hands about, finally getting him to look at her again. “You know. Taking it seriously.”

“No, you’re right,” he told her, placing a hand on her shoulder like she was the one who needed reassurance. He eyed the entrance to the room, and she didn’t like the look on his face. Like they were running out of time.

“Why throw in the Lincoln angle?” She asked, and Coulson let go of her arm.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m just curious,” Skye explained, shrugging her shoulders. “Why did you think Gonzales would go for that?”

Coulson seemed to consider his words carefully. “Well, for one, an emotional decision is less threatening than a tactical one to someone like him, and we needed to give you a reason to leave, one you wouldn’t let go of.” Skye nodded. She really didn’t like that guy. “It also makes you seem like less of a threat; as far as he knows you want to run off with a boy, not form a diplomatic alliance.”

She snorted. “Ugh, he’s so gross. I bet he’ll be _so excited_ to write me off as some lovestruck teenager.” She really, _really_ didn’t like that guy. Coulson got a funny look on his face.

“Yeah, he does that.”

_Oh, I’m not letting that one pass._

“What do you mean?” She repeated his own question back to him, a move he didn’t miss. He smirked, but it was strained.

“I think... I went for that tactic partly because of the _other_ reason Robert would latch onto it.” He explained, again speaking ever so carefully. She raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue. “He seemed curious about our relationship. Curious, and disapproving. I thought by playing into that, like with May's experience in Bahrain--”

"He would get cocky, feel like he had one over on us." Skye understood. Maybe. “Wait, so he thinks we’re sleeping together?” She had to admit, that explained the whole ‘rawr you’re choosing that guy over me’ schtick. It had seemed pretty standard on paper, but once it was out in the open, he sounded so...jealous. And weird. It threw her off. Coulson seemed to blanch a bit. “I guess me going off book wasn’t so bad after all. Kind of fit in with his whole narrative, huh?”

“That was a good choice,” Coulson told her. He looked at the door again.

“Can you stop, for like, just a minute? Even just like, 30 seconds.” At his blank expression, she rolled her eyes. “Looking at the door like that, you’re making me all jumpy. Like suddenly the boogeyman is going to appear.” She laughed at her own stupid joke, but it was uneasy laughter. The truth was, she knew why he was looking at the door. She just didn’t want to admit that it was the next step.

“You know what has to happen next, Skye.”

His voice again. That hurt even more than his disappointment or anger. Because this time it was real.

He didn’t want her to leave.

But he knew she had to. They both did.

She looked up at his eyes. It wasn’t as bad as before, back in his office, but she knew what that look was. It was probably the same face she was making.

“I don’t want to go,” she told him, surprising herself with how miserable she sounded. She watched Coulson's face fall, just the tiniest bit. “But I know why I have to,” she amended before he had to tell her himself and break her heart any further. He pursed his lips tighter, placing a stiff hand on Skye's shoulder.

“It’s not-- it’s just for a little while. You know how this goes.” She did. Which is why, when he moved to pull her into a hug, she backed away.

Deliberately ignoring the stung look on his face, Skye grabbed his lapels. “I know how _that_ goes,” she told him, resigned. “Every time we... _do that_ lately, ‘I’ll see you soon’ turns into ‘am I ever going to see you again?’ And I just can’t do that again, Coulson.” The confession hurt, literally causing an ache in her chest and a stinging in her throat, like she wasn’t supposed to let those words out.

But he miraculously looked like he understood. Like maybe he felt the same way. She didn’t let herself consider it, not with her impending departure. Stepping back a bit, Coulson reached in his pocket, holding something out to Skye. In the dim light of the room, she recognized the item, and her breath caught in her throat.

“They only made twenty, I think,” he told her, and she let out a strangled laugh, turning the battered watch over in her hands.

“I thought you said it was a lost cause?” The watch, she realized, had still clearly seen some wear and tear, but was in far better condition than the last time she saw it. _He fixed it._

“That was pretty pessimistic of me, wasn’t it?”

Skye looked up at Coulson, who was smiling at her fondly. Gently he reached over and grabbed the watch from her with one hand, holding her wrist in the other. “It's still the same watch, but I was able to make a few modifications,” he told her, and she obediently held her wrist aloft as he secured the item around it. “If you need to contact me, for whatever reason, use this.” He pointed out the innocuous button on the side. “There’s no tracker, or surveillance device,” Coulson reassured her, as if she didn’t trust him. “It does, however, tell time.”

“Will the wonders never cease?” Skye asked, and he rolled his eyes. She examined her wrist thoughtfully. “Thank you, Coulson. I mean it.” He shrugged bashfully, and Skye gently punched him in the arm. “Hey, seriously. This means a lot.” It really did. Something told her that if Coulson wanted to give her something to communicate with, he could have given her anything else. A burner phone, a gadget from Fitz. This though, it _meant something_. She wasn’t a lost cause, SHIELD wasn’t a lost cause.

_We aren’t._

Coulson just reached over, rolling the cuff of her shirt down to cover the watch. His fingers brushed the underside of her wrist and she shivered a bit. “This comes with a condition, you know,” he mentioned, taking longer than necessary to straighten Skye’s sleeve.

“I have to bring it back, at some point, right?” She smirked, but he shook his head, serious.

“ _You_ need to come back. Or, at least, I need to see you again. Here, there, somewhere else to be named later?”

“Somewhere warm?” She chimed in, catching him off guard. “Like Hawaii, or Fiji, or some secret island only SHIELD knows about? Come on, there has to be at least one. If not five.” A beach would be a treat, she thought, something to look forward to. Something bright and silly and kind of sexy even though she wouldn’t dare tell him that.

 _Well. I could mention it_. After all, how long had they been in that damn room? He was so concerned about time (well, they both were. May was probably losing her mind,) but here they were, lingering. He looked restless, she decided, watching his arms twitch at his sides.

“Fine,” she told him, with faux exasperation. His brow furrowed. “We can hug. I still have a sneaking suspicion we’re cursed, but something tells me we need to wrap this up, and I don’t want to leave without--”

_Oh._

_That’s better than a hug._

The kiss was registered in snippets of feelings; a hand on the back of her neck, his chest pressed against her own. His lips, of course, moving against hers. Gathering her wits about her, Skye pulled him in closer, opening her mouth under his. Her hand caressed the side of his face and she felt the weight of the watch around her wrist. Pulling away, she held the hand, palm up, in front of his face. Not breaking eye contact, Coulson leaned down and pressed his lips to her pulse point, right beneath the watchband. Lacing his fingers with her own, he let their hands drop.

At that point they simply stared at each other, and Skye registered that, now that the room was silent, she could hear _it_. The quiet ticking of the watch. She looked down, noticing Coulson do the same. “I think I discovered the one fault of your lovely gift, Phillip,” she murmured, and Coulson chuckled.

“What was I thinking?” Skye laughed with him a bit, but could feel it creeping up on them. She had to leave. For real this time. Coulson seemed to understand as well, letting out a long sigh. Skye set her shoulders back, looking him in the eye.

“I will talk to you soon,” she told him, meaning every word. Coulson nodded, and she leaned in to plant one last chaste kiss on his lips. “And when this is all settled?”

“A beach,” Coulson answered. “Private beach.”

“Atta boy,” she cooed. Sighing, Skye began shaking her head, then her shoulders, then her hands, as if preparing herself for a workout. “Okay, this needs to happen now or I’m never getting out of here. Ready?” She looked at Coulson, who looked unsure, but resigned. His lips quirked in a reluctant smile. 

“You know the answer to that.”

He opened the door.


End file.
